


Companionship

by ashkatom



Series: AtABros [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 04:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Disciple saved a collection of idiot rebels from starving to death in winter and subsequently joined them on their adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Companionship

You have been following this signless pupa for three days, and you don’t think he’s even noticed. You think maybe the adult with him has seen you, but she hasn’t said anything. The psionic with him hasn’t detected you, and that’s the most important. Adults are brutal, but psionics kill.

They travel during the day. The light doesn’t seem to bother either the Jade adult or the mysterious steel-coloured grub, but you can see psionics around the mustardblood’s eyes, like the worst pair of sunglasses anyone’s ever seen. The sun hurts you, but these are the first new trolls you’ve seen out here since...

You wrap Pounce’s pelt around yourself as a shield and follow them through the daytime.

\--

It doesn’t take you long to learn their names. The signless one is Karcin, the adult is Rosa, and the psionic is Pollux. It takes you a lot longer to figure out why they’re tracking their way through your bit of nowhere. Jade blood is respected enough that Rosa should be able to go anywhere, especially if she can afford a psionic. And only highbloods can hide their signs without being afraid of the repercussions.

Then Karcin cuts himself while collecting edible plant life. It’s such a stupid accident you almost can’t believe it. He trips to within a metre of the shrubbery you’re hiding in and scores his hand on a rock. Almost immediately, he curls into himself, hiding his hand in the folds of the cloak he always wears. He’s too quick for you to see his blood colour, but the speed at which he hid the cut and the way he went completely silent, not even crying out, has you suspicious. You wait until he’s gone, then crawl out from your hiding place and look at the rock that injured him.

There are a few drops of bright, unnatural red on the point. All you can hear is the shout of _culled for infirmity_ and Pounce’s last shriek of pain that sent you into the middle of nowhere in the first place.

You bury your hands in Pounce’s pelt to stop them shaking and kick dirt over the rock. Once the blood is covered up you erase Karcin’s tracks in the immediate area and begin the long walk to the nearest town.

\--

Being a greenblood, you’re entitled to some supplies. Not many, since you’re barely a greenblood, but enough. More than enough, since you’ve been living off the land since you were six. You still remember your identification number (of course you do, quoting it saved you and let you rescue Pounce’s body), and despite the strange looks you get you manage to collect enough food to last you a couple perigees, at least.

Your group of three lost outcasts have made a surprising amount of headway, and it takes a long day of following their tracks like prey to find them again. It’s halfway through the night when you catch up, and Karcin is the one on watch duty. For one insane moment, you contemplate just going up to him and laying the food at his feet, but you couldn’t take a flapbeast after pushing yourself so far to catch up to them, let alone a psionic and an adult.

Instead, you wait.

Mere hours later, Karcin unfolds himself and goes into the cave where the other two are presumably sleeping. You only have however long it takes for him to wake either Pollux or Rosa up, but that’s more than enough time for you to dart to the mouth of the cave and decaptchalogue the food you picked up.

You don’t stay around to watch their reactions.

\--

The weather turns cold quickly. It’s the first chill of the sweep, and all you have is Pounce’s pelt to keep you warm. You’ve been burning through your credits for food for your outcasts, who you’ve come to a silent agreement with. You give them food, they don’t stay up all night and day trying to find out who you are. It was working out well, but now you’re cold and your usual prey is hidden away and hibernating.

And they have a fire.

It’s hidden enough that it’s not immediately dangerous (and maybe you broke some branches and doctored the canopy of trees around them to hide it a little better) and you don’t think that there would be any harm in sneaking just a little closer. Your fingers are freezing off.

You wait until Karcin is on duty and sneak as close as you dare.

He pokes the fire with a stick and, not looking at you, says quietly, “You can come sit with me, you know.”

You are struck motionless. There is no way he could have seen you. He’s never noticed you before - but then he looks directly at you and you realise you’ve been an idiot. He’s a mutantblood who’s managed to survive to your age. Of course he saw you. He’s probably known you were there all along.

“I won’t tell the others you were here,” he adds. “If you want.”

You crawl out of your cover and slink towards the fire. There’s no point in staying there when you could be warm instead, and you’re pretty sure that Karcin’s not going to cull you. He wriggles over on the blanket he’s sitting on, and after several long minutes, you eventually sink down beside him. The fire is so warm your fingers hurt as they heat up.

Karcin reaches out to touch your shoulder. “Is that a lusus pelt?”

You twitch away and slap his hand down before you realise what you’re doing. At the look on his face, you bury yourself in Pounce’s fur and bite your lip before you can cry. “It’s Pounce,” you offer as explanation. Nobody’s tried to take Pounce from you before.

His jaw drops. “Your lusus.” He wraps his arms around you before you can do anything, and he’s so warm that you don’t even care if he culls you. It reminds you of sitting between Pounce’s paws when you were little, and suddenly your breath is hitching in your throat. “This is so fucked up, I’m sorry.”

“He was just trying to help,” you choke out. Karcin puts a hand on your head and you bury yourself in the first contact you’ve had with someone who cares.

“Shoosh, it’s okay, things are going to change,” he says. You think you might even believe him. You don’t sleep, exactly, but you do close your eyes and dream.

\--

You’re shaken out of your fugue a few hours later. The fire’s died down, but still radiates enough warmth to make you want to curl up near it and never leave. Karcin prods you until you stretch out and look at him expectantly.

“It’s Pollux’s turn for watch,” he says, and something in you cracks. You knew this couldn’t last. “I thought you- hey! Where are you going?”

“Away,” you blurt out. This was... good, it was nice, but something tells you that Karcin will make you weak, that you won’t be able to survive if you stay and get adopted into his group.

“Come back tomorrow,” he says firmly. “You can’t sleep out there alone, you’ll freeze.”

You bolt into the woods without giving him an answer.

\--

You don’t go back for another perigee, except to drop off your usual supply of food. Karcin leaves out some shoes and gloves for you, and you put them on wondering how this teeny tiny little redblood can be so nice and highbloods can’t.

_Things are going to change,_ he said. So you’re not the only one who thinks that life is unfair.

He doesn’t seem surprised when you join him by the fire one night. He merely offers you a stick with a spongesweet speared on it. “Here. Rosa got these last time she was in town.”

You hold it over the fire until the outside is black. The inside is sweet and melty and better than anything you’ve eaten since you started following these trolls around. You burn your fingers pulling the second one off the stick. You and Karcin sit in silence, and you don’t know about him but the companionship is doing something very strange to your feelings.

Then again, you’ve had your feelings on lockdown so long that anything feels strange.

Three’s as many spongesweets as you can handle, and Karcin stops eating when you do. After a long silence, he says, “Do you want to meet Pol?”

“He’s like you, right?” you ask, your hands tightening on Pounce’s pelt. Your voice sounds odd in your ears, probably because you haven’t talked to anyone since the last time you talked to Karcin. “He won’t hurt me.”

“Pol?” Karcin says incredulously. “Pollux Castor is about as likely to hurt someone as he is to actually eat something any time this perigee. I’ll go get him, stay put, okay?”

You stay put, because the first person who showed you any kindness asked you to. Pollux is, on closer inspection, about as able to harm you as a quackbeast. You feel a lot better, knowing that not all psionics are crazed lusii murderers, although you still use Karcin as a shield between the two of you.

You estimation of him goes up when he floats spongesweets in the fire so none of them stick to the makeshift skewers you and Karcin have.

“Stay with us,” Karcin says, and grabs your hand. “You’re pretty much travelling with us anyway, why not do it properly? You know us, we won’t hurt you. And we could use a friend.”

_Weak soft-hearted little girl who got her lusus killed_ , your head whispers. _You’ll be that again if you travel with him. You’ll take stupid risks and get everyone dead._

You bury the voice and curl into a ball. “I’ll travel with you,” you say, hardly believing yourself. “For a while.”

The three of you curl up around the fire and watch it until it’s embers. If you cry, you can blame it on the woodsmoke.

\--

You’re all big screwed-up messes by the time you meet after death. Karcin feels guilty for not saving everyone, Pollux feels shitty about being the Condesce’s ship and you, you always knew you’d be too weak to save them but went along with them anyway.

Being back together with them makes you so happy that you think it was worth it. This time, you’re not going to let them out of your sight.


End file.
